HST287: Reading Notes, 07-Oct-2004
Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological
Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Pomper, Philip. "World History and Its Critics"
Green, William A. "Periodizing World History"
McNeill, William H. "The Changing Shape of World
History"
Crosby,
Alfred W., Ecological
Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004)
Prologue
"European emigrants and their descendants are all over the place...They
compose the majority of those very few nations on this earth that
consistently, decade after decade, export large quantities of food."
(p. 3-4) They live in temperate zones that support similar flora and
fauna and fall within a range of similar lattitudes.
Pangaea
Revisited
MacNeill's Theory: people from complex, dense civilizations carry a
broader range of diseases and immunities than people of less dense
civilizations. When the two come into contact, the latter usually end
up the sickest. (p. 32)
The
Norse and the Crusaders
Crosby consciously and somewhat arbitrarily chooses the domestication
of the horse (5,000 years ago) as the date by which the Old World
Neolithinc Revolution had been completed in its original lands. He then
calls the next 4,000 years of civilized development relatively
unimportant. The Old World (Eurasia) spreads. The New World fails to
develop the horse, the wheel, though they do develop social groups,
temples and recording.
On the period 500 A.D to 1,000 A.D.: "Western Europe stopped being the
wrack left behind by the ebb of the Roman Empire and began being
something new and vital. The dark centuries of barbarian wanderings and
Carolingian false starts and general cultural infertility were over. .
.this was more than a simple revival. The Gothic cathedral . . .was
more than a sign of rebirth. It marked the first birth of a society of
remarkable energy, brilliance, and arrogance. Such societies are often
expansionistic." (p. 44)
Iceland: 870 AD
Greenland: late 10th
Markland: 1,000 AD
Vinland: 1,000+ AD
What worked?
- Vinland had sufficient grass for herds.
- Animals provided Norse with milk (which they could digest,
though Skraelings could not
- Norse had the wheel and built iron works (though metal weapons
are not really a plus in hand-to-hand combat with stone weapons)
What didn't?
- colonies were too small (Norse society, even more so, Greenland
society which is where the colonies actually originated from, was still
small and could not support larger colonies)
- skraelings were hostile in Vinland (much later they were also
hostile in Greenland)
- they did not bring infectious disease to wipe out skraelings
(and their populations were too small for "maintenance of crowd
disease" (p. 52)
- Greenland colony was already failing before arrival of Black
Death
- mini ice age, deforestation, denuding of vegetation by animals
depleted resources
- ice blocked former Greenland fjords, limiting ship visits
- colder climate, skraelings moved back in
- their ships and navigation were not suited to frequent,
accurate ocean voyages, and they were conservative about plying into
the unknown
The Crusaders: why wasn't the conquest permanent?
- supply line to home was neither strong enough nor steady enough
- ships were not adequate to transport large armies and
accoutrements (and marching to the Holy Land took too heavy a toll in
disease, weather, local predators (p. 60)
- early disunity of Muslims did not last
- there just weren't enough Crusaders for prolonged warfare and
occupation
- too many were killed by disease esp. malaria to which Europeans
have no tolerance (and disease helped by malnutrition) to make
propagation and permanenet settlement possible
Iceland was the only surviving colony of this early expansion, probably
because it was close, had a relatvely hospitable climate, and had no
indigenes to deter colonization.
The
Fortunate Isles
Atlantic ventures:
- 1291: vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi: sail around Africa, disappear
- 1336: Lanzarote Malocello: sails to Canaries, settles, killed by
locals
- early 15th: Azores used as rest stops, seeded with livestock
- 1439: King of Portugal grants settlement rights in Azores
- late 1440s: settlers exporting wheat and woad, but not sugar:
wrong
climate
- 1420s: Poto Santo (smaller Madeira) settlers (Columbus'
father-in-law,
Bartholomeu Perestrello, captain) bring rabbits, rabbits reproduce too
vigorously and destry ecosystem, settlers leave
- early 1400s: Madeira, settlers burn off trees, look for
exportable
product, grow sugar, firt water-driven mill: 1452, exporting to England
, 1456. Population goes from 800 in 1455 to 17,000+ (inc. 2,000 slaves)
by 1499. Though the climate was good for sugar, the island had to be
terraformed. Terraces and intricate water courses were built.
- Early slaves included Berbers, Canarians, Christianized
Moors/Jews and
only later, African.
The Canarians, or Guanches, were brought by sailors on their way back
from conquering the Canaries to Portugal. They settled the Canaries
from Africa, probably from 2,000 BC to 100-200 AD. Related to Berbers,
brought barley, wheat, beans, goats, dogs, pigs, maybe sheep, but no
horses; pottery but no spinning/weaving or metalwork. 1483: after many
years of attempts, and five years of all-out Spanish assault, Gran
Canaria falls. 1492: La Palma falls. 1495: Tenerife, the last island,
falls.
Was Spanish conquest inevitable? Not by weapons, against which the
Guanches had local advantage, nor by numbers (only 1,000 or so
Spaniards could be brought in/supported at any time). The Guanches were
not united in language or culture and had already suffered 100 years
attrition to slavers. Spaniards had cavalry. Guanches ceded flat,
grain-producing areas to Spaniards and retreated to defensible hills.
Previous population growth among Guanches, possibly helped by
importation of fig tree by Europeans, led to female infaticide.
European diseases also took its toll.
Winds
Why go?
- want/need to go
- ships: large, fast, maneuverable enough
- navigational technology
- portable weaponry
- appropriate energy source: wind. John H. Parry 'the discovery of
the sea' that is, the discovery of the winds and currents of the
Atlantic suffficient to use it reliably (p. 108)
Sailing discoveries:
- Bartholomeu Dias: 1487
- yes, there was passage to India around Africa
- <><>the wind patterns of the South Atlantic were
like those
of the North Atlantic upside down
- Columbus:
- can't buck the trades: must sail west on the trades, but north,
then east to get back (volta -
crabwise)
- Da Gama:
- to sail from Europe to Indian Ocean, go south, then southwest
almost to Brazil, then southeast around Cape of Good Hope
- the Indian Ocean had many mariners from whom he could draw
information
- the people of the area had no cannons
- Magellan: 1519, 5 ships, 240 crew
- after being stuck in doldrums, sailed down coast of SA, around
horn, then north before turning west. Lucked out, though it took 3.7
months. Magellan killed in Phillipines, Elcado commands voyage home. Victoria goes west, Trinidad goes east. 36 returned
home from both, but only the 15 remaining on the Victoria were Europeans who now had
a better sense of the world's oceans.
- Ponce de Leon: 1513: discovers Florida, but more important, the
Gulf Stream
Within
Reach, Beyond Grasp
What areas were not hospitable for European occupation?
- Pacific Asia; already well established
- Middle East: ditto
- tropical Asia: too many "bugs"
- Africa: European plants and animals did not do well, and disease
(Liberia: African-American transplants dies at rate almost equal to
whites)
- West Indies: indigenes died, but so did Europeans
- Queensland: hot and moist but far fewer people and animals to
host anti-European disease colonies
Weeds
"Any respectable theory that attempts to explain the Europeans'
demographic advance has to provide explanation for at least two
phenomena. The first is the demoralization and often the annihilation
of the indigenous population of the Neo-Europes. . .Second, we must
explain the stunning, even awesome, success of European agriculture in
the Neo-Europes." (p. 147)
Considers three life forms that spread: weeds, feral animals, and
pathogens.
Considers three areas that were the seed-beds for further expansion:
eastern third of the US, south-eastern corner of Australia (along with
New Zealand), and south and coasts of South America.
Forests razed for timber, animals overgrazing, and abandoned cultivated
areas, all make room for weeds.
Peaches: brought by Spaniards to Florida, brought north and grown by
Amerindians, abandoned and were naturalized as Amerindian populations
declined.
Most "weeds" traveled unidirectionally: from Europe, not to Europe.
Why don't they take over? "As they take over disturbed ground, they
stabilize the soil, block the baking rays of the sunm and, for all
their competitiveness, make it a better place for other plants than it
was before. . .they give way to plants that may grow more slowly but
grow taller and sturdier." (p. 169)
Animals
Pigs: prolific, eat anything (including much that humans eat:
competing), high percent edible, go feral pretty fast,
Cows: adapt to more hot climates than pigs, eat what humans don't and
convert it to that which Europeans can digest: milk,
Horses: adapt well
Bees: native of Mediterranean and Middle East, brought to North America
via Virginia colony, moved west slowly, sad harbingers to Amerindians
of approaching Europeans,
Rats: stowaways, almost destroyed Jamestown
Ills
Rapid spread of disease among indigenes was hastened by fleeing the
disease. Often it appeared that whole areas were abandoned and left
vacant before Europeans arrived. The southeastern US was fairly heavily
populated, with complex societies, before disease left the area empaty.
"The uneveness of the exchange [between Old World and New World
epidemics] operated to the overwhelming advantage of the European
invaders, and to the crushing disadvantage of the peoples whose
ancestral homes were on the losing side of the seams of Pangaea." (p.
216)
New
Zealand
So completely different from Europe but with certain compelling reasons
for colonization in the late 18th cent.: timber, seals and whales,
Maoris to convert or enslave. By the early 19th cent. they had
decimated the seal population and there were only sporadic whaling
stations. That was in decline by 1840s due to harvesting calves and
mothers from shore.
Three requirements for Europeanization:
- something was needed to attract Europeans in large enough
quantities to disrupt the local ecosystem
- large numbers of Europeans must be located near enough to make
colonization practical
- local peoples must be motivated to provide what they need
Maori's adopted white potatoes and were soon exporting them to the
world. Pigs also adapted well. They were physically and culturally
susceptible to disease, including veneral disease, and practiced
infanticide. After Europeans and missionaries established a colony on
the north end of North Island and Maori's started adapting European
plants and animals, the area became a popular port for whalers. Maori
products were traded for metal implements and muskets by which Maori's
could use to dominate other local Maori groups.
Maori groups, decimated by European disease and too willingly adapting
European culture, eventually allowed Britain to make them a colony in
hopes of maintaining some of their own culture. From a pakeha
population of 2,000 in 1840, the population rose to 32,000 by 1854.
Meanwhile Old World animals took over, making room for Old World
invasive plants. The same pattern emerged in the South Island as
Maori's were able to plant and raise Old World crops and animals.
Explanations
Martin's theory, [that the first wave of human hunters devastated
ecosystems, provides an explanation for much about the neo-Europes that
is otherwise obscure. And it places Amerindians, Aborigines, and Maori,
on the one hand, and European invaders, on the other, in a fresh and
intellectually provocative relationship: not simply as adversaries,
with the indigenes passive and the whites active, but as two waves of
invaders of the same species, the first acting as shock troops,
clearing the way for the second wave, with its more complicated
economies and greater numbers." (p. 280)
Conclusions
The Neo-Europes were created in waves. Early invasion of pioneers and
mid 19th century invasions of push-pull from Europe. Neo-Europeans
population increased rapidly but has since stabilised. Neo-Europes have
the appropriate climate to grow most of the world's food. There are no
more earth locations to provide windfall advantages to migrants. We
need to be careful with the ecosystem we use now to ensure its future.
McNeill,
William H. "The Changing Shape of World History" History and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 2,
Theme Issue 34: World Historians and Their Critics (May, 1995), 8-26.
What are the best approaches to world history? "The organizing concept
is hard to name, being the geographically largest circle of effective
interation among peoples of diverse cultures and circumstances. .
.Before 1500 several different communications nest co-existed, each
with a dynamic of its own, though the largest was always situated in
Eurasia and now embraces the globe."
"Competing terms exist: "interactive zone," "world system," and
"ecumene," but none is completely satisfactory or generally accepted by
world historians. Nonetheless, the author asserts that a perceptible
drift towards recognizing the reality and centrality of this large
structure in the human past has begun to show up among practicing world
historians; and the balance of the essay sketches how key alterations
in patterns of Eurasian communication mark the principal stages in the
expansion and intensification of interaction within the Eurasion
ecumeme." (p. 8: Abstract)
Thucydides; "a pridefully accurate, sharply focused monograph" dealing
with a specific event, a war
Judeo-Christian: a historical vision in which God is central: all
history is world history with God as the moving force
China: cyclical, dynastic: heaven chooses ruler, dynasties become
corrupt and are replaced by new pure dynasties
Italy: study of pagan writers revives reaffirmation of human actions as
focus of history
"We in the historical profession persist in the same behavior today,
remaining for the most part content to work (often unconsciously)
within the liberal, nineteenth-century interpretation of history whose
principles, if overtly affirmed, would embarrass most of us because we
no longer believe them." (p. 10)
18th century historians (Vico, Voltaire, Gibbon, Herder) desacralized
the past, finding larger patterns (cyclical or cumulative)
19th cent: The "compromise between pagan and Christian heritages
carried over into the nineteenth century, when the liberal vision of
history took shape. . .The core idea was simple enough: what mattered
in history was the sporadic but ineluctable advance of
Freedom." (p. 11) (So European history became "good times" and "bad
times" and US history held a privileged place)
So where does WWI fit in. Oops. So, Spengler and Toynbee suggest a
cyclical model again, but in so doing included the rest of the world in
the picture. This world history see the driving forces of history as
either economic/technical or as religious/artistic/scientific cultural.
(p. 13)
Landmarks in the history of the interactive, ecumenical world system of
Eurasia:
- historical change is "largely provoked by encounters with strangers, followed
by efforts to borrow (or reject) especially atractive novelties" which
in turn involves adjustments to established routines. . . Once clashing
cultural expectations arose at a few crossroad locations, civilized
societies were liable to keep on changing, acquiring new skills,
expanding their wealth and power, and disturbing other peoples round
about." (p. 15) (cf. Maori example in "Ecological Imperialism")
- sociesties are not really autonomous "a proper world history
ought to focus primarily upon changes in the ecumenical world system,
and then proceed to fit developments within separate civilizations, and
within smaller entities like states and nations, into the pattern of
that fluctuating whole." (p. 16)
- societies were complex, diverse, even chaotic but " mercatile
practice had, in fact, slowly reated a woekable code of conduct that
went a long way towards standardizing encounters across cultural
boundaries." (p. 17) tax outsiders, tolerate traders
- early sea transport, then China, 2 chnages: building of canals,
taxes collected in cash not kind, made market/trade more necessary.
Trade expanded to Europe, Europe built better ships (with cannons) to
take advantage of it.
- "Human groups, even while borrowing from outsiders, cherish a
keen sense of their uniqueness. The more they share, the more
each group focuses attention on residual differences, since only so can
the cohesion and morale of the community sustain itself.. .The upshot
has always been conflict, rivalry, and chronic collision among human
groups. . .Even if world government were to come such rivalries would
not cease, though their expression would have to alter in deference to
the overriding power of a bureacratic world administration. In all
probability, human genetic inheritance is attuned to membership in
a small, primary community. Only so can life have meaning and
purpose. Only so can moral rules be firm and definite enough to
simplify choices. But membership in such groups perpetuates the gap
between "us" and "them" and invites conflict since the best way to
consolidate any group is to have an enemy close at hand." (p. 25)
Pomper,
Philip. "World History and Its Critics" History and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 2,
Theme Issue: World Historians and Their Critics (May, 1995), 1-7)
Cognitive differences:
- hedgehogs: grand synthesizers, system-builders, holists
(philosophers?, world historians)
- foxes: relish detail and particularity (traditional historians)
To make an impact:
- "opening up for investigation a trove of archival material"
- "developing new methods of research"
- "making what had been marginal the center of attention"
- and sometimes "offer new vision of things that others have
investigated but comprehended differently" (p. 2)
Green,
William A. "Periodizing World History" History and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 2,
Theme Issue 34: World Histoirans and Their Critics (May, 1995), 99-111.
Medieval: divine intervention
post-Marx: material forces
Period frontiers: coincidental watershed
moments (perceptions of univers, printing, gunpowder, ships all
coincided to produce the Columbus moment) or leading sector (discovering the New
World changed everything)?
"To make a cake, one needs a recipe. To divine why and how history has
evolved as it has, one needs a theory of change. Theory does more than
identify the ingredients of historical problems. It explains the
process which gives those ingredients meaning." (p. 102)
Some theories:
technologies, trade-driven theories (Frank: economic surplus between
regions)
Can disease theory solve the problem? Not really: Important but not a
central driving force.
Questions
1) What an enjoyable book! I think Crosby has found a good balance
between the Braudellian dilemma of "is it about the Mediterranean/is it
about Phillip II." He includes individuals where it seems reasonable to
do so, for example, when looking at the early European explorers, but
avoids doing so when focusing on the larger, sweeping patterns of
change. That makes complete sense in terms of his thesis but I could
wish for more, specifically two acknoledgements or explorations: 1)
Crosby puposely (almost gleefully) glosses over the years 500-1,000 in
Eurasia as being the "ebb of the Roman Empire." Was there really so
little movement between Eurasian peoples in the years before 1,000 A.D,
especially between 500-1,000? and 2) He doesn't mention that the
earliests crusaders were, I believe, primarily Normans who were
themselves only one or two generations past the "roving days" of their
Norse forebears. We'll probably have to await further
developments in brain science or genetics to determine if there is a
biological basis for the "pioneering spirit" or "marauding nature," but
it would be interesting to see how that type of cultural
background/mentalities impacts Crosby's thesis.
2) MacNeill says: "We in the historical profession persist in the same
behavior today,
remaining for the most part content to work (often unconsciously)
within the liberal, nineteenth-century interpretation of history whose
principles, if overtly affirmed, would embarrass most of us because we
no longer believe them." (p. 10) He assumes that his audience
understands what those interpretations are. Given the nature of where
he is writing, an article that can not exceed a certain length, it is
only reasonable that he does not elaborate. However, is one of the
difficulties of trying to write a (or even several) world histor(y/ies)
finding a starting point among all the possible presuppositions that
different historians might bring to the process? How does one know that
one person's assumptions about that starting place will be interpreted
the same way as another's?
3) Though it suggests unanswerable questions, this one resonates for me
this year, given the political situation (and probably, I'll admit,
given the fact that I did a summer fun re-read of Asimov's "Empire"
science fiction series which ends with an interesting twist on a
similar dilemma). Long, but the whole quote is:
"Human groups, even while borrowing from outsiders, cherish a keen
sense of their uniqueness. The more they share, the more each
group
focuses attention on residual differences, since only so can the
cohesion and morale of the community sustain itself.. .The upshot has
always been conflict, rivalry, and chronic collision among human
groups. . .Even if world government were to come such rivalries would
not cease, though their expression would have to alter in deference to
the overriding power of a bureacratic world administration. In all
probability, human genetic inheritance is attuned to membership in
a
small, primary community. Only so can life have meaning and purpose.
Only so can moral rules be firm and definite enough to simplify
choices. But membership in such groups perpetuates the gap between "us"
and "them" and invites conflict since the best way to consolidate any
group is to have an enemy close at hand." (p. 25)
My question is: Really?
Is this an accurate assessment of all past human cultures? Is this a
'basic human characteristic' or simply a manifestation of recent times?
And must it always hold true? Under what circumstances might it change?
(Hmm...I wrote this before reading Pomper. So should I be looking at
Fukuyama and Nandy for these questions?)
4) Could replace #2 which is not that interesting anyway...
Pomper: MacNeill, Abu-Lughod, and Green "search for patterns and
integrative periodizations, and for new ways to comprehend the
relationships of the parts making up systemic wholes." But isn't this
almost an impossibility? Humans seem to be very good at
pattern-finding. (gets us intor trouble, too--just look at the
Eugenicists.) If one can find patterns in everything, how can one say
with any conviction that this pattern is better/more accurate/superior
to that pattern? Or, how do world historians guard against that?
hope.greenberg@uvm.edu,
Created/updated: 2-Oct-2004/7-Oct-2004
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